This Saturday from 11am-3pm in the the YBCA Sculpture Court, the Sustainable Magic team will be participating in the "DiscoTech" Workshops event: "Demystifying Prototyping".

Part of the broader Open City/Art City Festival (running from 11am-8pm and free), the DiscoTech is organized by Code for America’s SF Brigade and Market St. Prototyping Festival

A "DiscoTech", or Discovering Technology, is a community-based, multimedia workshop and fair, where participants have the opportunity to learn more about the possibilities of technology, and take part in fun, interactive and media-based workshop stations. Each station at a DiscoTech focuses on a unique drop-in activity that can be easily shared with anyone, helping to demystify a technology, fabrication technique, or urban prototype. This year, we have stations by Sustainable Magic, the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, Noisebridge, Neighborland, and more, including stations put on by San Francisco residents. This DiscoTech event will provide event participants an opportunity to learn new skills and form creative collaborations, which we hope will inspire future projects showcased at the Market Street Prototyping Festival in April, 2015!

Sustainable Magic will have a 3D printing / prototyping station set up along with arduinos, robotics, sensors, and LEDs to demonstrate how to easily integrate technology into creative projects.

Here is a glimpse at the 10 confirmed DiscoTech stations, and what they'll have to offer:

Market Street History Station and Pseudo-Historical Paper Plaque

Project Description: A station showcasing historical information about Market Street, and how it has evolved over time. This station will also host an activity where participants can create a plaque to represent their own moments of inspiration on Market Street.

Project Description: A soldering station, where participants can create small projects with a soldering iron. Projects range from small light devices to "Legal Graffiti" - lights with magnets that can be fastened to backpacks/clothing and project light imagery in shapes, words and pictures.

Host: Mitch Altman, Founder / Noisebridge

Anti-Eviction Mapping Project

Project Description: The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project is a data-visualization, data analysis, and digital storytelling collective documenting the dispossession of San Francisco Bay Area residents. The project seeks to de-isolate those displaced and act as a tool for collective resistance. The AMP will present two activities at their station: 1) How do do oral history interviews, and 2) A coding activity where participants can add data to the map in real time.

Host: Andrew Ryan Szeto / Anti-Eviction Mapping Project

Mobile Selfie Booth

Project Description: This project is a mobile selfie booth that will have participants take their own selfie with a trigger/shutter. It will move around the space to engage participants at the Discotech. They will be able to write about the event immediately and also tag themselves in the photo. They will also take selfies by holding up a piece of paper that answers the questions "What is Market Street?" These selfies will post to Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook.

Host: Maria Judice / Soko

Sustainable Magic: Making Technology for Making Great Art Easy!

Project Description: An Electronics and 3D printing station. This team just raised $24,000 on Kickstarter to create this Mobile Maker Media Lab! (their goal was only $18,000). Please check out the project, it is amazing and they are amazing humans!

Hosts: Sean Stevens and Ashley Newton

Kinetic Musical Saddle

Project Description: Kinetic Musical Saddle prototype - a saddle that adapts bike peddles to power a fan that blows air into an organ pipe and creates tones. This sculpture is powered entirely by humans and is a precursor / mockup for a larger group of sculptures.

Project Description: 3 Pieces of positive emotion "gym equipment" designed to boost moods and encourage positive emotions. Check out the project! The three pieces that will be showcased are 1) The Throne 2) The Lotus Bench and 3) Heart with Wings

Host: Chacha Sikes

Introduction to Neighborland

Project Description: Neighborland empowers organizations to collaborate with residents on local issues. They provide real-world design tools and a web-based communication platform. Their goal is to improve the way local organizations, municipal leaders, and residents collaborate to make great ideas happen. This station will be an interactive digital and white board demonstration of how Neighborland works and how to use it as a tool for community organizing.

Host: Dan Parham, Co-founder and Designer / Neighborland

Electronic Frontier Foundation / Encryption Technology

Project Description: This station will have informational materials on EFF, and will provide info and assistance on encryption technologies for online protection.

Project Description: This station will be showcasing pictures and a few physical art pieces that have been produced during Gray Area workshops. It will also be an informational station about Gray Area.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) and The Institute for the Future (IFTF) are teaming up to engage the public through a creative and generative weekend that looks at how we transform a city. The weekend consists of IFTF’s Maker Cities’ Conference (Oct. 3) and the Open City/Art City Festival (Oct. 4). Through a vibrant mix of art installations, speakers, participatory activities, performances, music, food, and play, IFTF and YBCA invite the Bay Area community to imagine how we can build a city that is more open, creative and inclusive.

The Open City/Art City Festival seeks to leverage the essential role we all play in civic life and the future of our city. We want to explore the infrastructures, assets, and places needed within cities locally and globally to enable access to artistic exploration, inspiration, participation, collaboration, and opportunity.

The Festival provides a unique occasion to connect with some of the most progressive leaders in the Bay Area who are on the forefront of socially engaged enterprises in the arts, the public sector, urban design, and technology. Join us in uniting our diverse communities together to help frame generative dialogue, identify opportunities for collaboration, community engagement, collaborative design of our public spaces, and inclusive, citizen-centered city models.

As dialogue, connectivity, advocacy, storytelling, and cross-disciplinary innovation are increasingly woven into projects produced by artists and civic technologists, the boundaries between passive and active participant are diminished in lieu of a civic-minded and interdependent community. We hope that by providing a venue for stakeholders and community members to facilitate discussion, we can amplify the broad range of perspectives that comprise our city, and inspire new ways to shape the future. We are truly excited to help foster new, resilient connections in the community and facilitate mutually beneficial relationships across disciplines and industries in the Bay Area. And more to come!

Topics:

• Systems of Support and Strengthened Infrastructures for Vibrant Arts and Culture• Uniting Civic Technology with Arts Civic Practice• Digital Divide, Inclusive Technology Movement• "Re-engineering" the Relationship between Art and Technology in the Bay Area• Maker Cities - The “Maker Mindset” to the Complex urban challenges of health, education, food, and citizenship• Economic Shifts and Gaps - Addressing Equity - Changes in Neighborhoods and its Impacts• Public and Private Partnerships - Leveraging New Resources and Capital